Reader-Suggested Economics Blogs

On this week’s poll about people’s favorite economics blog, readers suggested a lot of economics blogs in addition to the five in my poll. There were so many suggestions that I figured they deserve their own post to share them with the full readership.

I have personally never read most of these, so consider this list not so much a recommendation, but more of an informational roundup. Here’s the complete list of every economics blog suggested by readers (in addition to the original five from the poll), in alphabetical order:

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About The Tim

Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. His background in engineering and computer / internet technology, a fondness of data-based analysis of problems, and an addiction to spreadsheets all influence his perspective on the Seattle-area real estate market.

“Economists today primarily serve the needs of powerful interests at the expense of society in general” is how Robert Johnson – the frighteningly honest Executive Director of INET – describes the self-indoctrinating field of study that remains in such seemingly high regard in the nation.”

” “At the core, economics is about politics and about power, and the question for the economists is whose power are you going to serve as an expert.”

“Economists today primarily serve the needs of powerful interests at the expense of society in general” is how Robert Johnson – the frighteningly honest Executive Director of INET – describes the self-indoctrinating field of study that remains in such seemingly high regard in the nation.”

” “At the core, economics is about politics and about power, and the question for the economists is whose power are you going to serve as an expert.”

“(S)o what power interests (are) Krugman representing? (T)he people(,) when he says we need less unemployment(?)”

This isn’t as simple as it seems. Krugman plays to the people, but at the behest of the NYT and the interests they represent, generally big money and banking. Krugman pushes Keynesian solutions- more .gov stimulus and expansion- under the guise of helping the average Joe. But the reality is that stimulus money has only helped .gov expansion and its cronies, capitalized the failing banks, inflated the equities markets and boosted inflation in food and energy. Net/net, I’d say the harm has been greater than the gains for the man in the street. But lots of loyal lap dogs lap it all up. See the pic above. Is that you, pfffffft?

Krugman has been pushing QE for both US and Europe for a long time. So after so many rounds of bailing out Greek debts and a couple rounds of LTRO, the Greece situation has only gotten worse. Had Greece (and the other PIGS) followed Iceland’s footsteps at the beginning, they would be out of the woods by now.

“(S)o what power interests (are) Krugman representing? (T)he people(,) when he says we need less unemployment(?)”

This isn’t as simple as it seems. Krugman plays to the people, but at the behest of the NYT and the interests they represent, generally big money and banking. Krugman pushes Keynesian solutions- more .gov stimulus and expansion- under the guise of helping the average Joe. But the reality is that stimulus money has only helped .gov expansion and its cronies, capitalized the failing banks, inflated the equities markets and boosted inflation in food and energy. Net/net, I’d say the harm has been greater than the gains for the man in the street. But lots of loyal lap dogs lap it all up. See the pic above. Is that you, pfffffft?

The U.S. govt. borrows about $1.5 trillion/yr, and the associated rise in GDP has been far less than that. IOW, we are not seeing any velocity created out of this borrowing and spending strategy. Sure, it is temporarily blinding people into believing things are getting better. But the big question is, what would happen if interest rates were to go to 10%? Well, the U.S. Government would not be able to make it’s interest payment and have to default on (restructure) its debt.

As long as we can keep printing, things will seem OK. But if and when investors lose faith in our currency, it’s over.

Krugman has been pushing QE for both US and Europe for a long time. So after so many rounds of bailing out Greek debts and a couple rounds of LTRO, the Greece situation has only gotten worse. Had Greece (and the other PIGS) followed Iceland’s footsteps at the beginning, they would be out of the woods by now.

I can’t really keep up with all this. The United States is Japan. Greece could have been Iceland, but isn’t. Is there a list some place of which countries have identical situations so that we could know when the same course of action or future would apply?

Oh wait! Seattle was San Diego 18 months delayed. These theories are all bull.

Krugman has been pushing QE for both US and Europe for a long time. So after so many rounds of bailing out Greek debts and a couple rounds of LTRO, the Greece situation has only gotten worse. Had Greece (and the other PIGS) followed Iceland’s footsteps at the beginning, they would be out of the woods by now.

Iceland isn’t stuck on the Euro like Greece is. Having your own currency allows you to have many more choices. And they chose to let their 3 major banks fail (easy choice since they had debts that were 5 times Iceland’s entire GDP) and devalue their currency + large inflation (18% in 2008, 7.5% in 2009). Plus Iceland was heavily Keynsian in 2009 and 2010 – borrowing large amounts of money, followed by a string of budgets that raised taxes to pay for it, and imposing laws to prevent banks from getting that far in the hole again.

So, basically they did the exact opposite of what Europe is doing now and what Japan did in the 1990s, and a much more vigorous version of what the US did – in other words, Iceland is basically what Krugman was pushing (with the exception of letting all the banks fail in 2008).

This is a straw man argument. The Keynesian prescription is basically a smoothing mechanism at both extremes of the cycle. But it reminds me of a story. After WW!, the allies, and especially France knew that the Germans owed it to the world to suffer a lot of economic pain. Some idiot named Keynes thought they were going too far, but fortunately sterner heads prevailed. The Germans got plenty of pain; the economy collapsed, and eventually fascism prevailed – with another world war to follow. You might say that their kids suffered a price far beyond what they ever dreamed of having to pay.